Peachy
by hellolittlelove
Summary: Long walks, small frowns, and a new found love for peaches. She wonders if she can ever find the sweetness that she longs for. Something is going on with Blossom and Brick's starting to realize that he can't unravel their strands of fate. A tale of friendship and love in all the wrong places. Mainly REDS. PPGxRRB
1. Prologue: Georgia Peach

Disclaimer: I don't own the Powerpuff Girls.

HLL: I've been debating about coming back to fanfic for a while, but after coming across some old stories...I just had to. Hope you enjoy the slow burn of Chemical X with teenage hormones.

* * *

Blossom was a Georgia peach.

Well, according to the old man with a bent back on the edge of town. When she went for long walks in the countryside, he was usually out at the same pond with a stick fishing pole. Always the same slow wave, always with her uncertain polite smile in return.

He tipped his hat when she passed. She thought about being compared to a fruit, a fruit from a state she'd never been to. Maybe she'd ask her dad to take her one day. Her and her sisters, so they could pluck peaches from the trees. She could figure out if he was right. When she sank her teeth into the vulnerable flesh and tasted a flavor that she hoped maybe, just maybe, was her.

Her sisters noted her new found love for peaches after a few weeks.

"Why are you always bringing a peach for lunch lately?"

She shrugged, mentioned that it had vitamins and was in season. Her sisters rolled their eyes because Blossom wore her knowledge. A mature veneer she couldn't scrub off. Not that she hadn't tried desperately. When older boys offered her cigarettes and her heart did a flip at their handsome smiles. But, it was always no.

Once, she tried to be cool. Real cool. Tried to close her eyes and feel the responsibility drift away. Ethereal standards nobody asked her to uphold, but she did all the same.

Cool wasn't her. It wasn't who she was at all. Plans sprung up in her brain. New ideas, innovative measures, tactical maneuvers. It wouldn't turn off.

She bit into a peach, tasting the sweet juice as it trickled down her hand in a syrupy stream.

It was good, but she wondered what it would've been like if it'd been from Georgia.

* * *

There was nothing good a girl could get into at night. Every media facet had drilled that into their XX chromosome skulls since birth.

It was cruel, she thought. Cruel and unfortunately common to tell girls to alter their behaviors. She negated that with her abilities, but still.

The muggy air swallowed her up as she strolled through the park. A fat moon hung above her. She wanted to take a bit out of it. See if it compared to the taste of a peach.

She walked to the foundation towards the center, a monstrously large display of pearly white stone now streaked with dirt and green stains from the chemical water spewing out of it. The water had been turned off. Once the sun sank, the entire town powered down with a pitiful sound.

Only the streetlights were on. The one nearest to her flickered with an unsteady hum. She eyed it warily, considering flying up to twist the bulb tighter into place. As if sensing her intent, the light stopped flickering. It held steady with a bright glow.

She perched herself on the edge of the fountain, stretching her legs in front of her on the cobblestone ground. The path was constructed from round mahogany stones and rocks the color of purple battle bruises.

Wounds weren't her style. They were the result of impatience, a lack of planning. Buttercup got bruises and relished them. Bubbles tended them with teary eyes. If she ever got them, Blossom hid them. Concealed them underneath pretty silk blouses so nobody could see that she'd made a mistake.

How did she get this way? It was in her genetic code, it had to be. Her sisters held themselves to strange personal standards...just as not as high as her own. Nothing was good enough for her. She felt it deep within her bones, greatness weeped when she missed it.

That man told her she was a Georgia peach. Her heart rebelled against it, but she was a tough core beneath sweet flesh. Maybe that's why she kept sinking her teeth into them. She ate three yesterday, two in hiding. The juices tasted foul on her tongue by the third, but she couldn't stop herself. It felt right.

It felt like her.

Her legs shimmered, two well-toned pieces of carved ivory, underneath the light. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes as frogs began to croak out lullabies. Her mouth watered for a sweetness that couldn't exist.


	2. I: Rowdy Encounter

HLL: Hey guys! Please read and review if you enjoy this story. I'm returning from fanfiction after a while, but hearing from people always makes me happy. If you have time, I'd love to hear what you think. I love writing the RRB characters. Butch is probably my secret favorite, because he's such a bastard. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own the Powerpuff Girls.

* * *

Buttercup stared at her so hard that Blossom was sure her ribbon would catch fire.

"May I help you?" Her voice was level. It always was.

Buttercup snorted. "Something's up with you lately."

Blossom rolled her shoulders back, bringing herself up to gaze back at her sister with a straight back and a frank look. "What do you mean by something?"

The green-loving girl soured. "Nevermind." She muttered something dark underneath her breath. Blossom watched her cropped dark hair disappear, ducking into the living room. The sound of a video game powering up hit her ears.

She shouldn't be that defensive, but Buttercup liked to stir pots. If you didn't shut her down, then she would wiggle in and tear the whole place apart. She liked being able to get under the skin, something that Blossom loved and loathed at times.

Her eyes swung to the mirror hanging above their kitchen table. The barest hint of dark circles underneath her eyes caused her to frown. Damn. Maybe she'd been wandering around too much at night, but it helped her to think. The Professor let her. Her sisters liked it. When Blossom took her walks, it meant that nobody else had to deal with that pensive look or the way she brainstormed out loud.

She glanced at the bowl in front her in the center of the table. Two oranges, three apples, one bruised banana. No peaches.

Well, she'd have to go and get some.

* * *

It happened a half hour past noon. The bristling heat was searing people into the sidewalk. She fanned herself with a brochure from the fruit stall downtown, debating on taking flight instead of walking. A cloud crawled in front of the rays and a cool breeze washed over her. She sighed, clutching the burlap tote close to her, feeling the delicious weight of a dozen fresh fruit.

Maybe she'd closed her eyes for a second because the weather was perfect at that moment. Maybe her feet were too light along the path, cutting through that park she loved so much. Maybe she was letting her guard slip.

When their heads collided, skull first and groans second, she let a curse word slip from her lips because she was a teenager. It'd hurt. She and the other person had fallen to the ground in the collision. Her knees scraped the fiery bumpy pavement.

Then came her frown, because it shouldn't have hurt. She peeked through squinted eyes, rubbing the knot forming on the side of her head. Her stomach flipped.

"Watch it, Blossom." His gruff voice was as rough as the stones beneath them. The red eyes regarded her with a slicing look. "Cursing like a sailor and running into innocent people doesn't seem very Puff-like."

Brick was handsome. As handsome as a sharpened blade of a person could be. His angular face was chiseled where her own lines sloped softly. If she was cool flowing water, he was the biting edge of a stone that cut the flow. But, he was evil. Well, maybe not as evil as he used to be, but he was still rude. He ran a hand over his own bruised forehead, sweeping a few fallen locks from his face. His red hair was pulled messily up, fastened with the quick hand of a boy who didn't care. Envy struck her, as she thought of her morning routines that lasted half an hour for her hair.

Her cheeks grew warm. "Sorry, Brick." Then her heart twisted at hearing her apology. She glanced at the ground; two peaches had rolled from her tote to rest at his knees. He was in dark jeans despite the heat and now they were scuffed with dirt. A woman with a stroller giggled as she passed by, muttered something about siblings to her baby. She couldn't have lived in Townsville, Blossom figured, if she'd missed the childhood rivalry that was widely televised.

Brick eyed the fruit warily, muscles flexing beneath the white v-neck. "You throwing fruit at people too?"

"Rolling," she corrected with a half laugh. With one elegant movement, she snatched them back into her tote as they both clambered upwards.

She paused. Something struck her, an odd feeling within her. Tact dripped from her every pore to pool, forgotten and abandoned, into the cracks of the path. She placed one of the peaches in his hand before he could stop her.

"As an apology." With a little shrug, she turned and left. A sound of air escaping his throat struck her as she walked away, but the whole instance seemed to melt behind her as the cloud finally gave way to the bright sun again.

It wasn't until she saw her neighborhood that her heart thumped against her chest with realization. Her mouth dropped open as she stared down into the tote that only possessed eleven peaches now.

She'd bumped into a Rowdyruff Boy, apologized, and given him a gift. Acid rose in her throat, and she shook her head fiercely, causing a group of boys playing army to stare at her and scamper off with nervous laughter.

Was that bad? She didn't know. They never ran into them anymore. Not since last year, when Butch tried to fight Buttercup and she'd pounded his body into the cement until Brick took over his own brother's beating with a sudden arrival. They watched on as the brothers began ripping each other apart, dark comments too low and gritty to make out.

An argument, Blossom suspected, as they'd long grown past the primitive savagery of their childhood. The girls awkwardly drifted away as Boomer was flying in, yelling to complain that his brothers never let him in on the fun as he dove towards them with two fists.

"You know, they're going to school next year," Buttercup told her suddenly over breakfast a few months ago. It was March and Bubbles was cutting out four-leaf clovers for the school bulletin boards while she whistled happily. The whistling stopped upon hearing this.

"Our school?" She asked, blue eyes growing wide.

"We go to an all girls school, Bubbles," Blossom reminded her gently. The Professor had placed them in the best school in the city, an all-girls academy that gave them full rides for their service to the city: The Evergreen Academy of Excellence for Girls.

"Oh, right."

"Dumb-dumb," Buttercup muttered. "They're going to the boy school. The one across the street."

Evergreen had a companion school. Honorable Martin Academy, named after a folk hero back when Townsville was a village.

"That's just as bad," Bubbles cried while biting her bottom lip. She'd always had a habit of looking as if she were about to cry when they discussed anything new. Change shook her like a hurricane.

Blossom frowned. "Why hadn't I heard about this?"

Buttercup shrugged. "I'm the one who practices with the boys. Lucas told me today." It was true. Athletics were the only chance of co-ed experiences at Evergreen. A magnificent field between the schools held practices for both Martin and Evergreen on a few weekday afternoons.

Buttercup more than others had access to the Martin side. Her natural prowess towards sports meant that she was avidly invited to help coach and practice alongside the boys sometimes. Football, soccer, tennis, and baseball. Somehow, the girl found enough time for all of those sports.

When she got home, thoughts of that conversation were still floating in Blossom's mind. She padded into the kitchen and unloaded the fruit. One had dirt on it. The other that had rolled towards Brick. Her cheeks warmed, but she pushed the fresh memory of his face down.

She'd just been startled. That was all. She turned the faucet on and held the fruit underneath the spray, running her fingers over the fuzzy flesh. Her lips pressed together as the heat slowly drained from her body.

Slowly, surely, she washed off the rowdy encounter.

* * *

"What the fuck is that?" Butch asked, toothpick bobbing between his teeth in the corner of his carnivorous mouth.

Brick narrowed his eyes but shrugged off his brother's loud voice. Always. As soon as he entered their home, Butch was there, panting heavily with untrusting eyes. He ripped off doors if he thought someone was hiding information. The smell of conflict made his nostrils flare like a bloodhound seeking a wounded animal.

"A peach, dumbass."

But, Brick was worse than Butch, really. His voice was colder than Butch could ever manage. Where his green-eyed brother burned, Brick sent a chill down to the bone.

Idiot Puff. Walking around like a zombie, running smack into him during broad daylight. He had a reputation to think about. The fruit in his hand seemed to pulse with warmth. He glared at it.

Butch sizzled. "Ya gonna eat it, jerk off? If not, gimme."

A sudden possessive rage shot through Brick.

"Hell no."

He headed upstairs to his bedroom. Butch called after him with a slew of curses that were more endearing than anything. When Brick passed Boomer's room, he heard his other brother strumming away on a guitar.

Brick's door had caution tape on it, like all of his brother's doors had. Seeing it as he lumbered down the hall, clutching a piece of fruit, suddenly made him feel childish. Maybe he should redecorate. His face burned. Whatever.

The door swung open, trembling beneath him. With one motion, he threw himself onto his bed. His glare settled back onto the peach.

He sunk his teeth into the offending fruit and cursed.

It tasted too sweet, and he hated sweet.

But, he couldn't stop eating it, gnawed at it like a starved animal, until nothing was left but the hard core that felt like his heart.


End file.
